Uncanny Exchanges: The Possibilities and Failures of ‘Making Change’ with Alternative Monetary Forms

Abstract

In most standard accounts, modern money depends on its function as the general equivalent. Equivalence, in turn, rotates around a specific numerological metaphysics, including the concept of zero and the algebraic function. Yet, rarely are the mathematics of equivalence subject to critical scrutiny. In this paper I explore contemporary alternative numerologies of money and finance. The alternatives that I consider are a US local scrip currency and transnational Islamic finance experiments. My data come from fieldwork in Ithaca, New York, and from research among Islamic finance specialists devising new financial products. I am interested in how these alternatives make explicit the moral form of the mathematics of the general equivalent.